30s30d: D14

Sep 14

Written By Love Letter

“Just for Me”

Prompt: chill in the air
Submission of Member: ???

Downloads:

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So I actually wrote and charted this one earlier today, but then I had to get going to start the songs 8-14 debut live stream Keyholder concert tonight, and didn’t have enough time to post before the concert had to start.

This was another day where I REALLY struggled to stay focused, partly because of just being highly distractible/tired, but also still because of some lingering stuff in my personal life that I mentioned I’ve been struggling with the last few days. Anyway, when I finally got through everything that really needed to be done and sat down to write, I really struggled with my initial idea and had to give up on it.

Since there were so many “downer” songs in this last batch, I really wanted to end this chunk of 7 songs (within the 30) with something more in the Lex Land swing territory, and would have particularly liked to get another Christmas song in the bunch, so - here we are with basically the most bummer week of songs ever, bookended by two swingy Christmas tunes.

I know I just recently brought up “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” here, but I’d been wanting to write a fast-waltz like that for a holiday tune - since I have a few slower waltzes (“This Christmastime” and the most recent “Almost Christmas Again”) and at a couple medium-swing tunes for Christmas in the style of, say, “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” or “Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer” (tempo and feel-wise, not as in I’ve written a timeless classic) with “All Your Lonely Holidays” and “All I Want For Christmas (Is My Birthday).”

So I got going on this one but something about it felt familiar… I had written at least one whole verse before realizing this was basically Christmas lyrics to another song I wrote with a Valentine’s Day performance in mind that never happened: Maybe Not, After All.

If you go back and listen to that first song, you’ll see it’s basically identical to this new tune until you get to the bridge. 🙄 Even down to the key. Argh.

HOWEVER - I wrote Maybe Not After All 5 years ago? And have, since, had every intention to get back to it and revise it and polish it up so that I could chart it out and add it to the Lex Land catalogue (and request list) officially… but have I done it? No. No, I have not. Not for really any reason. Do I think it has some potential and actually would be really handy to have it for the lyrical-content reasons I described when I first posted it? Yes.

ALSO - and I think I mentioned this the other day - is it kind of okay if I am not able to pull out completely original ideas every single time I sit down to write something? Also yes. I’m conflicted about how I want to proceed with these two songs. I think I could probably change enough of the melody of either or both, and put one in a different key and that would probably suffice.

Truly this leads into a much larger conversation about how derivative can art be before it becomes plagiaristic? For instance, recently, modern-popstar Olivia Rodrigo had to retroactively give writing credit to members of Paramore because a song she released had a lot of similarities to a song they put out 10(?) years ago.

I’m not really here to argue the point, but even a lot of tin-pan-alley era songs were “recycled for parts” and used again in new compositions later in the 20th Century (there’s a term for it, but I can’t remember it, it’s 11 o’clock at night, and though I could totally go down a rabbit hole and dig through boxes to find the book I know I read about that in… it would be a whole thing and I’m gonna go ahead and give myself a pass).

Do many of my mid-century-swing-style songs have almost identical harmonic progression passages to other songs from that era? Yes. Do many songs from that era also have nearly identical harmonic progression passages to one another? Yes.

So many of my songs do and will end up sounding at least a bit like each other. That’s probably what makes them sound like me, so that’s okay. Do I think that’s also a point of entry for considering what my weaknesses and defaults are, and to consider where I could learn, grow, and push myself? Also yes.

You know how I can try to do that? By writing stuff. Even if it’s sometimes or often derivative, even if it’s not very good.

Any writing advice you’ll ever get typically starts with something to the effect of: “start” or “just do it.” With nothing on the page, there’s nothing to edit. If you’re not getting out of your way and letting yourself make mistakes, you’re never giving yourself the opportunity to actually make something good.